Monthly Archives: January 2012

My vampires-attack-a-prison novel LIGHTS OUT is now available from Thunderstorm Books.Â Thunderstorm is doing something a little different with this one, releasing it as a signed hardcover limited to 140 copies, but with an affordable cover price of $35.Â It’s a great little package, and I think it’s a step in the right directions, allowing both collectors and casual readers in on the ground floor.

Creatively, LIGHTS OUT is probably my favorite work to date.Â The characters that inhabit the novel are some of the richest, grimiest bastards I’ve ever conceived, but there’s a core of humanity to (most) all of them that makes for some fun, brutal good times.

A little more about the novel…

Burnham State Maximum Security Penitentiary holds the worst criminals humanity has to offer. Murderers, rapists, and others who have preyed upon humanity populate the prison, creating a food chain of violence and fear. Something lives beneath Burnham, however, and after years of waiting, it has been set free.And it is hungry.

Now, those who call Burnham home must band together if they hope to survive. After years of being called monsters, they will face something much worse, and they will know how it feels to be prey.

It occured to me this morning that it’s been far too long since I thought about goals.Â They used to be clear in my head, but around March of last year they all got scribbled over with Put on a great World Horror Convention!Â Then, I just never got around to working on them again.

Well, that needs to change.Â Part of my desire to constantly improve involves constantly rewriting my goals, making them a little bit more ambitious than they were.

So two weeks into January, here’s what I’m thinking my goals for the year will be…

1. Finish my current novel, The Slab City Event, before deadline.Â Make sure it’s a zombie novel I can be proud of and that few see coming.

2. Write Porcelain, a novel I’ve been planning for the lastÂ three years.

3. Find an agent.Â I’ll admit, this one’s been a goal for about as long as I’ve been planning Porcelain.

So here we are, another year.Â This one feels different for me.Â In past years, I’ve been able to look forward with a fair degree of optimism, saying fun things like “Surely no family members will die this year!”Â As 2012 gets started though, I feel pretty lost.Â I’m single and living in an apartment that still doesn’t feel like a home.Â I’m looking at a lot of big bills coming up in order to keep my car running and my cat in good health.Â

It’s funny… last week, I tried to write my top ten books of the year, only to realize that I read six books in all of 2011.Â That’s down from over 100 in 2010.Â My concentration is all over the place, and I really just need to tighten up and focus.

So that’s what I’m doing this year.Â I’m trying to focus and concentrate.Â I need to get back into the groove of things and hopefully find a way to be happy again.Â The last three years have been a study in depression, and I’m pretty fucking sick of it.

So let’s run down the good news…

Later this month, Thunderstorm Books will release my next novel, Lights Out.Â It’s brutal fun, and features 100% more vampires and prison sex than anything I’ve written previously.Â Maybe that’s a selling point, and maybe it isn’t.Â We’ll find out!

This spring, Sinister Grin Press will release Down, a novel that can best be described as “What would happen if a nineties rock band crashlanded in a forest full of really nasty things.”Â That’s your bare bones description.Â There will be more details in the coming months.

I have another zombie novel due on April 1st (seriously).Â Can’t say much about it, but I promise it will be fun.

So that keeps me busy through the first few months of the year.Â After that, I’ll be searching for a home for a crime novel of mine, working on another novel I’m currently calling Porcelain, and considering another short story collection.Â Here’s hoping it all goes well.